


and it all falls into frame

by postcardmystery



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Biphobia, F/M, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carter shouldn’t have come back, not to see this, the Queen and the Prince, their eyes only on each other, and he’s kissed that sneering mouth, run a hand down that straight, white back, but he thought Serena was salvation, his ticket back into everything he’s lost, and he does, he loses himself for a time, blonde hair soft beneath his fingers and a smile for him, for everyone, and there’s the rub, so it doesn’t work out because it never does, because he’s a man who keeps secrets, who tells lies, and Serena is beautiful but she’s simple, too, and his eyes still stray to a head that should wear a crown and to hands that could, have, held him down, and he leaves this time knowing that he’s going to come back, but he’s not running any more, this is merely a tactical retreat, because Carter Baizen is tired of running, and if he can’t burn this world-- and he can’t, he’s tried so many times and he’s always failed, so, his die is cast, the numbers up, his hand dealt, and if he can’t burn this world, well, then he means to rule it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and it all falls into frame

Being beautiful can’t get you everything, Blair knows, at ten, at fourteen, at seventeen, because she is beautiful, and everything is always just within her reach, but,  _but_ ; Serena is beautiful, and Serena always gets everything, and as much as Blair will always insist that she is never wrong, perhaps, maybe, well-- maybe it’s just a question of enough, of  _degree_ , of how she will never be good enough, no matter how hard she tries.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“I don’t love you,” she says to Carter, the first time they fuck, as he slips a hand under her skirt, and he smirks against her neck, says, “I wasn’t asking you to.”  
  
That’s  _it_ , why, because she’s lived this life, where everyone always wants something, but doesn’t want  _her_ , but Carter doesn’t want anything, just the press of their lips together and a knife in Chuck Bass’s heart, and she can give him the first, and through it, through his breath hot against her neck and his hand sliding into two hundred dollar panties, can give him the second, too, because if Chuck Bass must die, must burn, it should be her finger on the trigger, her wrist that flicks the match, because  _mine_  doesn’t always mean what you think it means, what you wanted it to, but it means it all the same.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“It felt like drowning,” says Chuck, in a rare moment of honesty, twenty-three and the game not over, and Carter laughs mirthlessly, says, “I can’t imagine why you’re using the past tense, Bass.”  
  
Blair stands on the other side of the room, runs a finger around the edge of a Martini glass, her eyes locked on them, the gulf between them so much larger and wider than a Manhattan penthouse, and Chuck throws his drink back, says, “Because there’s no place for you here, Baizen.”  
  
“It’s so nice that you think that,” says Carter, his lip caught between his teeth and his fingers reaching up to tug at his tie.  
  
Chuck’s eyes follow his fingers, because it’s one of Chuck’s, Thomas Pink, from a trip to London he can remember nothing of but Savile Row and a redhead with a filthy smile and rain and rain and rain, and Carter’s fingers are so, so white over the red of the fabric and Chuck looks away, because it doesn’t feel like possession, his tie around Carter’s neck and Carter’s shirt on Chuck’s back, but it’s still something that he doesn’t know how to parse, so he looks away and Carter raises his eyebrow, his glass, and Blair’s face goes hard, cold.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Let me guess,” says Chuck, as his eyes slide over Carter’s trench-coat, “you rob banks.”  
  
Carter’s twenty-two, now, and he should’ve graduated from Harvard a month ago, should’ve had a class ring on his finger and his whole life ahead of him, but he threw that life away a long, long time ago, and it’s only now that he’s learning: you can go to rehab as often as you like, fuck that secretary, divorce that wife, estrange that child, but once you tune in and drop out, well, there’s not much you can’t come back from on the Upper East Side, but he isn’t ever going to come back from this, cleaning out a bank account and getting on the first plane he could find, and he tried to escape, he did, he put more effort into trying that he’s ever put into anything, all that effort he held at his core for years, because everything used to come so  _easy_ , but he’s learned, too, that he can’t come back from this but he still must come back, back to skyscrapers and grey skies and this place, the coldest place on earth.  
  
“No more so than you,” says Carter, thinking of numbers dropping to zeroes on a screen, of roses on his parent’s dining table, of his mother’s bank account cleaned out, of Bart Bass’s coffin, of how no matter how far he runs, it never seems to be far enough.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Have you ever--” says Blair, a college sophomore, and stops, and Chuck curls his hand around her wrist, says, “Maybes are for the poor and the stupid, B, and we are neither.”  
  
“You can’t buy everything,” says Blair, slipping on her ice queen mask, because if she knows something, she knows this, because she’s watched her mother try, try and fail, with her first husband, with Blair, with a hundred friends who dropped her when Blair’s father left, and Blair has many diamonds but diamonds are cold and hard and a girl’s best friend, or so they say, and Blair can be like a diamond, except she’ll never be beautiful enough, except, except, except.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Blair’s hand in is in Carter’s, she’s resplendent in Oscar de la Renta, he’s sharp and slick in a Zegna suit and an Hermes tie, and he leans in to Chuck as he passes, whispers, “I’m stealing all your moves, man.”  
  
“Please,” says Chuck, his jaw clenched with fury, “ _as if_  you can pull off orange.”  
  
Carter winks at him, knowing everything he isn’t saying, and Chuck has to force himself to keep his mouth shut, as he looks at pale skin on pale skin, as he thinks of beneath, where their blood runs blue, where his runs hot and red and not half as noble, about how their blood runs blue, the  _same_  blue, decades upon decades of blood and money and so much power, and how there are some things with which even  _Chuck motherfucking Bass_  can’t compete, shouldn’t even try.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He doesn’t say  _marry me_ , because he can’t bear to hear her say  _no_ , doesn’t say  _kiss me_ , because he knows he’ll turn him down with a single glance, doesn’t say anything, caught outside of their game, a Bulgari diamond in his pocket, something Audrey wouldn’t wear but that Grace Kelly would  _kill_ , a Tiffany ring of titanium and silver, for fingers thicker than his own, but Carter isn’t allowed to play their game, a game where he isn’t holding any cards and the stakes are higher than he can even begin to imagine, but Carter’s a gambler born and he’s lost more than this on a single roll of the dice, ( _a plane ticket, or another drink?_ ), so he puts his hand on the small of her back, leers at him across the room, because he’s got nothing, so much, left to lose, because St Jude’s carved Caesar, Plutarch, Suetonius, into his soul, and if anyone knows the true meaning of  _alea iacta est_ , it’s Carter Baizen.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _The Dark Prince_ , the papers call him, at twenty-five, only half in jest, and Blair turns the page, not moving a single facial muscle, as, behind her, Dorota sighs.  
  
 _The Dark Prince_ , the paper reads,  _and the White Knight_ , and if the Dark Prince was a mark of respect, the White Knight certainly isn’t, a candid of Chuck with Carter at his elbow, both their expressions pinched with anger, Chuck’s hand reaching out towards the camera, Carter trying, not so hard, to hold him back, wearing a wicked smirk that belies the fury in his eyes, and of course the papers have to smear them both, of course they do, even if they get it wrong, because if anyone’s the prince, it’s Carter, his throne unsteady and his crown blackened iron, because if anyone’s the knight, it’s Chuck, always so ready to fight, always so ready to fight but never for himself, and they don’t have anything solid, just suspicion and rumour and  _I’m Chuck Bass_ , so they make it up, have been making it up for weeks, but still, still, Blair is so tired of it all as her phone buzzes beside her half-eaten grapefruit.  
  
 _You’re the only queen we need_ , the text message reads,  _we kneel before you and you alone. C &C_  
  
Despite herself, Blair smiles.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Her nails and mouth are Chanel red, her hair falls in a cascade of perfect curls, and she says, “Still not good enough.”  
  
“Nothing ever is,” says Carter, rolling his eyes, and Chuck crosses his legs as they share a glance, as Blair takes another sip of her champagne.  
  
“Do we have to fuck each other first,” says Chuck, his voice gravel-low, “is that it?”  
  
“If I told you the answer, it wouldn’t be a game,” says Blair, dismissive, and Carter leans back onto the leather of the limo seat, his hand just grazing Chuck’s knee, and grins.  
  
When his fingers tighten on Chuck’s thigh, Chuck says, “We know all your tells, B.”  
  
“An open book,” agrees Carter, and as Chuck spreads his legs Carter leans in, nips at his neck, bites at Chuck’s bottom lip, the smirk still on.  
  
Chuck doesn’t take his eyes off Blair’s face, shaking with the effort of holding himself still, until, until-- “Stop.”  
  
“Does this mean we win?” says Chuck, as Carter slumps on Chuck’s shoulder, wiping at his mouth, and Blair slides a finger under the strap of dress, says, “It means you don’t lose.”  
  
“Same thing, darling,” says Chuck, his hands curling, pulling tight in Carter’s hair, and Carter smirks, before he leans back in, says, “Not with Queen B, it's not.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
His father’s dead and it seems to echo, because Lily already has her hand in the crook of that washed-up loser’s elbow and his father’s  _dead_ , he’s cold and he’ll rot and what does Chuck have left to live for, his hands shaking in their leather gloves and his hair slicked back with those shaking hands, the first time for days that he’s dared to look in a mirror, and Blair loves him, loves  _him_ , says it and she’s more scared than he’s ever seen her, and he throws it all away, because love doesn’t mean anything when it ends with a body in the ground and that’s how it all ends, how it always will.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“I’m Chuck Bass,” says Chuck, at twenty-seven, the words rolling differently in his mouth, and Carter raises an eyebrow, says, “I’m Carter Baizen. You’re not the only one who can say that and have it mean something, you know.”  
  
Blair brushes away a stray curl, says, “I’m Blair Waldorf. Compete with that, gentlemen.”  
  
They can’t and they know it, so they just take a wrist each, kiss it, because she’s Blair Waldorf and everything else, it pales.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _I wasn’t asking you to_ , Carter said, once, and even through it was true it still felt like a lie, because she’s Blair Waldorf, haughty and sharp and utterly unbreakable, but beneath her sharp edges beats a heart,  _beats_ , and he could feel it when he moved in her, when she pinned him down and rode, and he tells a lot of lies, always is, and he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t wish that when she looked at him, in those hot, messy, wrong moments, that she was  _seeing_  him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Carter’s seventeen, Chuck fifteen, and they’re both quietly drunk, Blair dancing with Nate, Serena dancing with someone nameless, while, from the sidelines, a dark-haired boy watches her and swallows, and Carter says, “Want to get out of here, Bass?”  
  
“What an unsubtle come-on,” says Chuck, because he’s young but he’s still  _Chuck_ , and Carter shrugs, fluid, says, “One time offer.”  
  
“I’m sure it’s not,” says Chuck, wryly, because Chuck’s reputation and Carter’s reputation, well, they aren’t the same.  
  
Chuck can make any girl say  _yes_ , but the whispers about Carter are insidious and dark,  _he’ll fuck anything_ , echo the halls of St. Jude’s, and they’re only whispers because he’s Carter Baizen, the man who will rule Manhattan one day, blue blooded and with a princess at his side, and the only reason, Chuck knows, that it won’t be Blair is that she has eyes for Nate and Nate alone, and Chuck’s heard the whispers,  _better a junkie than a fag_ , because at least drugs, they can be cleaned out, his father, for one, has been very clear about that, but the light’s catching on Carter’s cheekbones, and Chuck Bass, even at fifteen, has never been much of a one for  _no_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Carter shouldn’t have come back, not to see this, the Queen and the Prince, their eyes only on each other, and he’s kissed that sneering mouth, run a hand down that straight, white back, but he thought Serena was salvation, his ticket back into everything he’s lost, and he does, he loses himself for a time, blonde hair soft beneath his fingers and a smile for him, for everyone, and there’s the rub, so it doesn’t work out because it never does, because he’s a man who keeps secrets, who tells lies, and Serena is beautiful but she’s simple, too, and his eyes still stray to a head that should wear a crown and to hands that could, have, held him down, and he leaves this time knowing that he’s going to come back, but he’s not running any more, this is merely a tactical retreat, because Carter Baizen is tired of running, and if he can’t burn this world-- and he  _can’t_ , he’s tried so many times and he’s always failed, so, his die is cast, the numbers up, his hand dealt, and if he can’t burn this world, well, then he means to  _rule_  it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Blair’s twenty-nine, and, a year away from thirty, she is not too old for games, but they bore her in a way they didn’t used to, now.  
  
“You, too?” says Carter, when he unlocks the door of penthouse suite they share, but, for propriety’s sake, do not live in, and she looks away so he can’t see her tears.  
  
“Why--” says Blair, and breaks off, because if Chuck’s done it to  _her_ , he’s done it to Carter, too, and Carter takes a long pull from a bottle of what was once Bart Bass’s whisky, says, “Because.”  
  
“Not good enough,” says Blair, her voice breaking, and Carter puts the bottle down, (it leaves sticky marks on a ten thousand dollar antique dining table, that Chuck bought five years ago in Paris, just to see Blair smile and Carter laugh, derisive), says, “Nothing is ever perfect, Blair.”  
  
“We ought to be,” says Blair, the tears still sliding down her cheeks, and Carter says, “If you wanted perfect, you ought to have married a prince. Welcome to Manhattan, there are no princes here.”  
  
Blair scoffs, says, her finger worrying over a diamond ring, “I’m old enough to know that, Carter.”  
  
“I can’t be your prince,” says Carter, kneeling at her feet, hand sliding over a Falke stocking, “and neither can Chuck, but this is what  _fate_  looks like, B.”  
  
“That’s exactly what I hate about it,” says Blair, her hand cupping his chin, “because when people say, ‘if it’s meant to be, it’ll all work out’, I don’t think they were talking about people like us.”  
  
“There  _are_  no people like us,” says Carter, leaning down, his teeth catching on the diamond of her ring, and Blair sighs, lets him push her legs apart, lets him say sorry for all three of them.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She’s stood in Serena’s shadow all her life, small and always second best, but it’s not her men that make her tall, that make her shine, because queens aren’t born, they’re  _made_ , and Serena never made anything, not in her whole life, but Blair perpetually creates, because if you stand still you lose, you die, and she can’t lose, won’t, her will iron and diamond-hard, steel curling up her backbone, her hands as dirty as dirty gets, and she stands, now, a queen flanked by her princes, their smiles matching, dark hair perfect and metaphorical knives up their sleeves, Chuck’s voice hoarse in her ear, Carter’s eyes dark and knowing and only ever on her, on Chuck, and if this world won’t take her as she is, she’ll remake it in her own image, too.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Don’t  _ever_  touch what’s mine,” says Chuck, and Carter couldn’t tell you which of them he meant, Blair, whose Herve Leger dress is ripped, or Carter, whose nose is steadily dripping blood on the penthouse floor, and Jack Bass laughs, says, “You can’t own the whole of New York, Chuck.”  
  
“You don’t own anything, as of twelve o’clock tonight,” says Blair, and Carter snorts, runs the sleeve of his beyond rescue Italian suit across his face, says, “I’ve had  _seven year old’s_  hit me harder. Hell,  _B’s_  hit me harder than that.”  
  
“Yes,” says Blair, smirking, something dirty behind her smile, “I have.”  
  
Jack’s eyes widen as, suddenly, it all computes, and Chuck steps forward, his eyes hot with fury, and Blair catches him on the wrist, says, “No, Bass. Let Carter.”  
  
Jack whistles, not clever enough to know what’s coming, says, “Jesus, the papers were  _right_  about something? Hell must’ve frozen over--”  
  
“You will  _leave_ ,” says Carter, his eyes cold, cold while Chuck and Blair’s  _burn_ , his top lip smeared with blood, “or they’ll never find you, asshole, I’ll make sure of it.”  
  
“What the fuck is this,” says Jack, starting to laugh, “fucking  _Goodfellas_ \--”  
  
“Carter keeps a gun in that desk over there,” says Chuck, almost lazily, “your move, Uncle.”  
  
Jack swallows, hard, and Carter wipes blood down the front of Jack’s suit, says, “Like I said, far more scared of Blair than I am of you, you petty little shit.”  
  
“Oh, my knights in shining Prada,” says Blair, and she’s trying for sarcasm, but it come out sincere, as Chuck presses his fingers into her hand, as Carter glances over his shoulder, smiles.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It’s not the first time blood has dripped on their penthouse floor, that much is true, because sometimes Chuck would rather punch Carter than kiss him, because they know each other’s buttons and how to press them better than they ever have, because years and years of rivalry aren’t wiped away just because now they fuck together, eat together,  _live_  together, because sometimes Chuck’s lip still curls and Carter still says,  _is that honestly all you’ve got, Bass_ , but it’s never about Blair, because she’s higher,  _more_  than this, and when she comes home to find Carter icing Chuck’s eye, or the other way around, Chuck’s jaw clenched as he disinfects where Carter’s cheekbone’s split, she just rolls her eyes, walks away, because her boys fight, and sometimes they fight each other, but, in the end, even they aren’t fighting about her they still fight  _for_  her, and her alone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Do you love him?” says Dan, when they’re twenty-six, because Dan Humphrey has never been much of a one for tact, even if he  _thinks_  he is, and Blair stares him down over the rim of her tea-cup, says, “Which one?”  
  
Dan chokes a little and Blair smiles, says, “You still aren’t good at knowing when your hand is showing, Brooklyn.”  
  
“Apparently you’re excellent at keeping your cards close to your chest,” says Dan, but there’s something calculating in his eyes that meant he knew all of this already, and Blair sighs, says, “How’s the blonde of the month?”  
  
“She’s Texan,” says Dan, shrugging, “it’s all getting a little Cormac McCarthy.”  
  
“Ew,” says Blair, pouring out more tea, “well, at least she’ll look good in your next novel.”  
  
“My novels are works of fiction,” says Dan, with the ease of long practice, and Blair raises an eyebrow, says, “I still object to being named ‘Beatrice’, you know.”  
  
“It was very Dante,” says Dan, straightening his Brooks Brothers tie, (oh, how the years have changed scruffy little Dan Humphrey, Blair knows, revels in,  _loves_ ), “and anyway, if you aren’t a writer, you don’t get to complain.”  
  
“I write stories all the time,” says Blair, and Dan laughs, says, “Yeah, B. I meant with  _words_.”  
  
  
  
  
  
She’s so beautiful, and he cursed Nate out for years, because Nate is his best friend, yeah, but he’s so blind, lost and caught in the superficial, and the key to unlocking Blair is realising that everything about her is superficial, and nothing is, because she’d rather be dead than be seen in last season’s clothes, but she’s got claws of hardened ice and they only come out if she loves you, if she cares, and he thought he was the only one who could see, but then, but then, Carter, Carter’s hands at her throat, hands that fisted in Chuck’s hair, once, and he doesn’t know if he burns with jealously or if he just  _burns_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“You used to love me,” says Serena, and Carter chooses honesty for once in his life, says, “Yes, I did.”  
  
“And now you love  _both_  of them?” says Serena, “I mean, how is that--”  
  
“I just do,” says Carter, and Serena gapes, says, “I really don’t get it.”  
  
“You know,” says Carter, “I was hoping you were going to be the one person who did.”  
  
“I, um,” says Serena, and Carter smiles, just a little, says, “I’ll see you around, van der Woodsen.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Thirty-one, and Blair kisses Carter and Chuck in turn, a Tuscan sunset behind her, russet gleaming in all their hair, identical darkness, identical light, and each of them has a ring, all different, not inscribed, Blair’s a diamond, Chuck’s engraved with Roman numerals, Carter’s gleaming platinum and on a chain about his neck, and it doesn’t matter that the world doesn’t,  _can’t_ , know, because metal blazes red against their skin, and Chuck bites at Carter’s throat, Blair’s hand in Carter’s hair, and the chain blazes red, too, and the world doesn’t know, but it doesn’t need to, because they know well enough for everyone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“You love Blair,” says Eric, “and you love Carter, too?”  
  
“You  _can_  do math,” says Chuck, and Eric laughs, says, “You could’ve just  _told_  me, Chuck.”  
  
“I just did,” says Chuck, and Eric chuckles, says, “Bet shower sex is a nightmare, then?”  
  
“B says I’m not allowed to tell your delicate ears such things,” says Chuck, as he slices the end off a cigar, “but Carter says he’s very proud of what he does on his knees, so, really, it’s up to you, little brother.”  
  
Eric laughs, again, says, “I’ll settle for one of your Cuban cigars.”  
  
“Good choice,” says Chuck, striking a match, “but I should really tell you about the phone sex, because  _that_ , that is quite something--”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
If Blair is beautiful, then so is Carter, everything reflected back that Chuck has ever loved about his queen, smart and cunning and oh-so-deceitful, doesn’t deal in the sort of lies that help you sleep at night, but the kind of lies Blair tells, that destroy walls and work and lives, and if loving Blair was fate then so was this, Carter their distorted mirror, with his dark hair and his wicked smile and his thirst for power, and if they can’t have the world, if they can’t burn it or remake it, if it’s too small and too tedious and too much all at once, then they will tell more of those lies, and break down all the walls they have to, burn all the hearts they can, because if the world isn’t good enough for them, if it doesn’t buckle beneath their weight, kneel at their feet, recognise them as kings, as a queen, then, with everything they’ve fought for, with everything they are, they will build their own.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Your choice,” says Carter, at twenty-six, and Chuck doesn’t move a muscle, his body ramrod straight, and Blair smirks, her hand on Chuck’s arm, says, “Not really.”  
  
“If you’re the queen, and he’s the prince, what am I?” says Carter, and he’s only half-joking, but Chuck’s eyes darken with something that Carter has seen a thousand times, but never to fruition, as he says, “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”  
  
“Oh,” says Blair, the new diamond gleaming on her hand as she reaches out, runs a finger down Carter’s cheekbone, “that is a guarantee, my knight in shining armour.”  
  
“Well,” says Carter, taking Blair’s hand, pressing his lips against her wrist, the nip of teeth all for Chuck, just so Carter can watch his jaw work, just because it makes Blair shiver, “it’ll do.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They’re his, in all the ways they aren’t, and he would write their story, if he could, of Blair’s blood-red lips and Chuck’s leather-gloved hands, but he knows that they are the people that rule, the people who write the history books in only the most arbitrary of senses, that history will know of Blair’s terrifying smile and Chuck’s dark, dark eyes, but people like Carter Baizen don’t write books, people like Carter Baizen are written  _about_ , and if there’s such a thing as fate, it’s this, Blair’s hand on his arm, Chuck’s ascot, stolen that morning, around his neck, a mirror that reflects three ways, and they won’t write the history books but they’ll be in them, because they were born to rule, because they  _are_  history, the whole crushing, awesome power of it, in Chuck’s bared teeth and Blair’s perfect copperplate handwriting, because they’re history, the three of them, and if there’s such a thing as fate, it’s this, the three of them, hands clasped, Manhattan at their feet, because some things were destiny, some things, some beautiful, awful things, they were always waiting, no matter where Carter Baizen ran.


End file.
